Patrick Henry was an American attorney and orator best known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. Henry was born in Hanover County and was for the most part educated at home. After an unsuccessful venture running a store, assisting his father-in-law at Hanover Tavern, Henry became a lawyer through self-study. Beginning his practice in 1760, he soon became prominent through his victory in the Parson's Cause against the Anglican clergy. Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he became notable for his inflammatory rhetoric against the Stamp Act of 1765. In 1774 and 1775, Henry served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, but did not prove influential, he gained further popularity among the people of Virginia, both through his oratory at the convention and by marching troops towards the colonial capital of Williamsburg after the Gunpowder Incident until the munitions seized by the royal government were paid for.

Henry urged independence, when the Fifth Virginia Convention endorsed this in 1776, served on the committee charged with drafting the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the original Virginia Constitution. Henry was promptly elected governor under the new charter, served a total of five one-year terms. After leaving the governorship in 1779, Henry served in the Virginia House of Delegates until he began his last two terms as governor in 1784; the actions of the national government under the Articles of Confederation made Henry fear a strong federal government and he declined appointment as a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He opposed the ratification of the Constitution, he returned to the practice of law in his final years, declining several offices under the federal government. A slaveholder throughout his adult life, he hoped to see the institution end, but had no plan for that beyond ending the importation of slaves. Henry is remembered for his oratory, as an enthusiastic promoter of the fight for independence.

Henry was born on the family farm, Studley, in Hanover County in the Colony of Virginia, on May 29, 1736. His father was John Henry, an immigrant from Aberdeenshire, who had attended King's College, University of Aberdeen, there before emigrating to Virginia in the 1720s. Settling in Hanover County in about 1732, John Henry married Sarah Winston Syme, a wealthy widow from a prominent local family of English ancestry. Patrick Henry shared his name with his uncle, an Anglican minister, until the elder Patrick's death in 1777 went as Patrick Henry Jr. Henry attended a local school until about the age of 10. There was no academy in Hanover County, he was tutored at home by his father; the young Henry engaged in the typical recreations of the times, such as music and dancing, was fond of hunting. Since the family's lands and slaves would for the most part pass to his older half-brother John Syme Jr. Henry needed to make his own way in the world. At the age of 15, he became a clerk for a local merchant, a year opened a store with his older brother William.

The store was not successful. The religious revival known as the Great Awakening reached Virginia, his father was staunchly Anglican, but his mother took him to hear Presbyterian preachers. Although Henry remained a lifelong Anglican communicant, ministers such as Samuel Davies taught him that it is not enough to save one's own soul, but one should help to save society, he learned that oratory should reach the heart, not just persuade based on reason. His oratorical technique would follow that of these preachers, seeking to reach the people by speaking to them in their own language. Religion would play a key part in Henry's life, he was uncomfortable with the role of the Anglican Church as the established religion in Virginia, fought for religious liberty throughout his career. Henry wrote to a group of Baptists who had sent a letter of congratulations following Henry's 1776 election as governor, "My earnest wish is, that Christian charity and love may unite all different persuasions as brethren."

He criticized his state of Virginia, feeling that slavery and lack of religious toleration had retarded its development. He told the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, "That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, therefore all men have an equal and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others." In 1754, Henry married Sarah Shelton in the parlor of her family house, Rural Plains. As a wedding gift, her father gave the couple six slaves and the 300-acre Pine Slash Farm near Mechanicsville. Pine Slash was exhausted from earlier cultivations, Henry worked with the slaves to clear fresh fields; the latter half of the 1750s were years of drought in Virginia, after the main house burned down, Henry gave up and moved to the Hanover Tavern, owned by Sarah's father.

Henry served as host at Hanover Tavern as part of his duties, entertained the guests by playing the fiddle. Among those who stayed there during this time was the young Thomas Jefferson, aged 17, en route to his studies at the College of William and Mary, who la

Felix Ermacora was the leading human rights expert of Austria and a member of the Austrian People's Party. He was a professor of international law at the University of Innsbruck from 1956, at the University of Vienna from 1964, member of Parliament for the Austrian People's Party from 1971 to 1990, member of the European Commission of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee 1959-1980 and 1984-1987. In 1974 he was President of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, from 1984 he was UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan. In 1992, he cofounded the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte, with his students and close collaborators Manfred Nowak and Hannes Tretter, served as its first director, he was part of UN delegations investigating human rights abuses in Chile, South Africa, occupied Palestine and Afghanistan. On behalf of the Council of Europe, he investigated human rights abuses in Algeria, Ireland and Cyprus; as an academic, a legislator and a UN official, he fought unconditionally against injustice and human rights abuses.

In an expert opinion commissioned by the Bavarian government in 1991, Ermacora concluded that the Expulsion of Germans after World War II constituted a genocide and crime against humanity. As the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, he uncovered "gross violations of human rights" by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, made public in a 1985 report, he received the German Great Cross of Merit, Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite of France, Commander 1st Class of the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden, the European Charlemagne Award of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft, the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education in 1983 and the European Human Rights Prize of the Council of Europe in 1992 for "an exceptional contribution to the cause of human rights". He received honorary doctorates at the universities of Cologne and Strasbourg, was a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1971, he was a board member of the International Society for Human Rights. In 1999, the Felix Ermacora Institut was founded, in 2005, the Felix Ermacora Human Rights Award was established by the Faction of the Conservative Party in the Austrian Parliament.

The Felix Ermacora Society was founded in 2005, is headed by Wolfgang Schüssel, the former Austrian Chancellor. His students include Andreas Khol, a former President of the Austrian parliament and, mosts prominently, Manfred Nowak, he died in 1995, of a disease he caught on a UN mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 1994. Handbuch der Grundfreiheiten und der Menschenrechte, 1963 Allgemeine Staatslehre, 2 vol. 1970 Österreichische Verfassungslehre, 2 vol. 1970/80 Grundriß der Menschenrechte in 1988 Die Entstehung der Bundesverfassung, 5 vol. 1986–93 Menschenrechte in der sich wandelnden Welt, 3 vol. 1974–94 Menschenrechte ohne Wenn und Aber. Erlebnisse und Begegnungen, 1993 Manfred Nowak, Dorothea Steurer and Hannes Tretter, Festschrift für Felix Ermacora - Fortschritt im Bewußtsein der Grund- und Menschenrechte, Kehl am Rhein, Engel, 1988

During each series, specific elements of the competition have a special show dedicated to them presented on a specific evening. Each weeknight and on Sunday evenings a compilation of the general events in the House for the previous day are presented. All live shows are broadcast with a 30-second delay so that images or language that cannot be broadcast due to Australia's censorship laws can be cut; these programs add up to 16 hours per week. Except for during its first season, Big Brother episodes screened each day except Saturday; the Opening Night is the first episode of the Big Brother Australia series that introduces the new housemates and the House for that year. It is hosted by Sonia Kruger, it was hosted by Gretel Killeen from 2001–07, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O in 2008. In different seasons it ran under various titles such as Launch, In They The Secret; the Daily Show aired Monday - Friday at 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm for all seasons of the series. It reported on the previous day's happenings inside the House, was narrated by Mike Goldman.

Seasons of Big Brother added a Sunday edition of the Daily Show, which covered the preceding Friday and Saturday, which screened Sundays at 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm. In various seasons of the series, the Daily Show episode would run to one hour, sometimes to accommodate a special event in the house. For the 2001 through to the 2007 seasons, on screen it carried the title Big Brother. For the 2008 season the on-screen title was shown as Big Brother: Daily Show. During the 2008 season the Monday evening installment was extended to a one-hour duration when the housemate nominations were incorporated into the episode. In 2012, the Daily Show aired from Tuesday - Thursday at 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm and Friday at 7:00 pm – 7:30 pm. Sunday and Monday did not include a Daily Show – instead a recap of the day was merged into the Sunday and Monday live shows. Housemate evictions occur in a program titled Big Brother Live Eviction; the housemate who has attracted the most viewer votes to evict is evicted. The eviction shows are televised each Sunday night at 7:30 pm.

Actual events start a short time before 7:30 pm. Proceedings are conducted in an auditorium in front of a live audience at Dreamworld; these shows are broadcast live. In this show one housemate, but two, is evicted from the house at around 7:45–8:00 pm. Shows that feature two evictions are called Double Eviction; the first Australian Double Eviction, described in advertising hyperbole as a "world first", took place during Big Brother 2002. Big Brother 2006 added the save vote; the 2008 season introduced a new eviction process. For the 2008 season the public vote for which housemate to save from eviction; the three housemates with the fewest save votes are nominated for eviction. The housemates vote to evict one of the three. From week five this new routine was abandoned the original eviction procedure reinstated: housemates nominate each other and viewers may vote only to evict those nominated. Big Brother 2012 changed the voting once again, getting viewers to save the nominees they want to stay in the house.

They can only vote for those housemates that are up for nomination and the housemate with the fewest votes to save them are evicted. This voting process is used in the current season, Big Brother 2013. In Big Brother 2004 after the eviction of Bree Amer, it was found the votes for that eviction had been incorrectly counted. Amer had not received the most eviction votes, she took up the option of returning to the house the following Monday night. A special eviction was held on the following Thursday evening in which the housemate to receive the most votes, Wesley Denning, was evicted. A representative of Legion Interactive, the company that manages eviction votes and compiles the results, appeared on the second eviction show to explain how the error occurred; the Big Brother Finale is a significant event conducted in front of an audience at Dreamworld and broadcast live on television. The usual series host presents the finale; the television presentation has been scheduled to run as long as three hours, sometimes running longer.

The 2007 season finale was extended by an hour due to a delay in finalising eviction vote tallies. In all Australian series the Finale features footage from the final day in the house, by which time there are only two housemates remaining, culminating in the announcement of the winner; the runner-up leaves the house in the manner of an evicted housemate, is interviewed by the host on stage. The winner is asked to leave the house joining the host on stage; the final two housemates of Big Brother 2004, Big Brother 2005 and Big Brother 2007 left the House together, were on stage when the winner of those seasons was announced. Big Brother 2006 had featured the original format where the winner is announced while the final two housemates are in the House, they both left separately. Big Brother 2008 had the finalists on the stage with the hosts. Season 9 retained the original format but with three housemates. Previous housemates of the season sometimes put on a musical or dance performance. Sometimes the performance is set to popular music and is based on several of the tasks the housemates had participated in during the season.

In 2006, Danielle Foote sang her single, while the other housemates did dance routines around her, using costumes and elements from various tasks of that season. The 2007 Finale was the last Big Brother program to be hosted by series host of seven years, Gretel Killeen. In 2008, the Final